How do animals optimize the size–number trade‐off when aging? Insights from reproductive senescence patterns in marmots

Berger, Vérane; Lemaître, Jean‐François; Gaillard, Jean‐Michel; Cohas, Aurélie

doi:10.1890/14-0774.1

Cited by 24 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Broussard, Risch, Dobson, & Murie, 2003). As in the study of Berger et al (2015), birth mass of individual pups did not decrease with maternal age.…”

Section: Effects On Femalessupporting

confidence: 56%

Senescence and costs of reproduction in the life history of a small precocial species

Trillmich

Geißler

Guenther

2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Species following a fast life history are expected to express fitness costs mainly as increased mortality, while slow‐lived species should suffer fertility costs. Because observational studies have limited power to disentangle intrinsic and extrinsic factors influencing senescence, we manipulated reproductive effort experimentally in the cavy (Cavia aperea) which produces extremely precocial young. We created two experimental groups: One was allowed continuous reproduction (CR) and the other intermittent reproduction (IR) by removing males at regular intervals. We predicted that the CR females should senesce (and die) earlier and produce either fewer and/or smaller, slower growing offspring per litter than those of the IR group. CR females had 16% more litters during three years than IR females. CR females increased mass and body condition more steeply and both remained higher until the experiment ended. Female survival showed no group difference. Reproductive senescence in litter size, litter mass, and reproductive effort (litter mass/maternal mass) began after about 600 days and was slightly stronger in CR than IR females. Litter size, litter mass, and offspring survival declined with maternal age and were influenced by seasonality. IR females decreased reproductive effort less during cold seasons and only at higher age than CR females. Nevertheless, offspring winter mortality was higher in IR females. Our results show small costs of reproduction despite high reproductive effort, suggesting that under ad libitum food conditions costs depend largely on internal regulation of allocation decisions.

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“…Broussard, Risch, Dobson, & Murie, 2003). As in the study of Berger et al (2015), birth mass of individual pups did not decrease with maternal age.…”

Section: Effects On Femalessupporting

confidence: 56%

Senescence and costs of reproduction in the life history of a small precocial species

Trillmich

Geißler

Guenther

2019

Ecology and Evolution

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“…If left uncorrected, inferences about the effects of aging on individuals may be unreliable (Hayward et al 2013). Controlling for the effects of heterogeneity has only seldom been applied to maternal effect aging research (e.g., Hayward et al 2013;Berger et al 2015;Fay et al 2016). There is a general need for an integration of methodologies that combine crossfostering with the ability to control for selective disappearance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Disentangling Pre- and Postnatal Maternal Age Effects on Offspring Performance in an Insect with Elaborate Maternal Care

Ivimey‐Cook¹,

Moorad²

2018

The American Naturalist

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Maternal effect senescence has attracted much recent scientific interest. However, the age-related effects of pre-and postnatal maternal age are often conflated, as these naturally originate from the same individual. Additionally, many maternal effect senescence studies fail to account for potential biases associated with selective disappearance. Here we use a cross-fostered laboratory population of a burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, to examine both the effects of female pre-and postnatal maternal age on offspring life-history traits and the postcare outcomes of mothers while accounting for selective disappearance of postnatal caregivers. Neither pre-nor postnatal maternal age affected offspring longevity or larval weight at hatching, and postnatal age had no effect on postcare maternal outcomes except to confirm the presence of actuarial senescence. There was weak evidence for concave relationships between two larval traits (dispersal weight and survival) and the age of egg producers. Selective disappearance of caregivers had no clear effect on any of the measured offspring traits. Contrary to predictions from evolutionary theory, maternal effect senescence and reproductive effort increases do not always manifest, and current theory may be insufficient to account for the true diversity of aging patterns relating to maternal care.

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“…Ecologists and evolutionary biologists have long been using lifetime reproduction to understand ageing and evolutionary trade-offs (e.g. Berger, Lemaître, Gaillard, & Cohas, 2015;Ricklefs & Cadena, 2007;Wheelwright & Logan, 2004). It is recommended to analyse survival and reproduction trajectories only after onset of maturity, given evolutionary theories of senescence only kick in upon maturity.…”

Section: Interpreting Our Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A pace and shape perspective on fertility

Baudisch

Stott

2019

Methods Ecol Evol

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Ageing is ubiquitous to all organisms, but ageing does not always mean senescence. Counter to most evolutionary theories of ageing, the patterns of mortality and reproduction may remain unchanged or improve with age, as well as deteriorate. Describing this diversity presents a challenge to eco‐evolutionary demography. The pace–shape framework of mortality tackled this challenge to qualify and quantify orthogonal components of ageing patterns in mortality. Here, we extend this framework to fertility. Analogous to the logic of the mortality framework, we define a perspective, a framework and novel methods for the pace and shape of fertility. These distinguish between orthogonal components of time‐scale (pace) and distribution (shape) of reproduction over adult life span. Our pace and shape framework mirrors that of mortality, through a shift of perspective from the mother giving birth, to the offspring being born. Our new measures overcome many problems associated with measuring natural fertility trajectories, have both a clear biological and mathematical interpretation, can be intuitively visualized and satisfy and extend important conditions of the pace–shape paradigm. A comprehensive framework of fertility pace–shape facilitates ecological and evolutionary research addressing interactions and trade‐offs between components of birth and death patterns, across the whole tree of life. The burgeoning emergence of large comparative demographic data sources across wide environmental, geographical, temporal and phylogenetic ranges, combined with pace–shape measures, opens the door to comparative analyses of ageing which were never possible before.

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How do animals optimize the size–number trade‐off when aging? Insights from reproductive senescence patterns in marmots

Cited by 24 publications

References 36 publications

Senescence and costs of reproduction in the life history of a small precocial species

Senescence and costs of reproduction in the life history of a small precocial species

Disentangling Pre- and Postnatal Maternal Age Effects on Offspring Performance in an Insect with Elaborate Maternal Care

A pace and shape perspective on fertility

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